With the launch of a single site, MTV has apparently put my biggest knock against the network to bed. That’s the lack of music videos of course.
Many of you probably remember an era where MTV showed nothing but music videos. Eventually, they started working some shows in there, and when they launched the first season of The Real World, the transformation of a “music” channel into a reality TV showcase had truly begun. Sure, it didn’t happen all at once, but as the years went on, MTV strayed further and further away from its roots.
Of course they offered a variety of spin-off networks like MTVX and MTV2. I believe MTVX died after a short life, and MTV2, which was also originally dedicated to filling the music video void left behind by MTV, eventually went down a similar path as its predecessor. There are a few other MTV spin-off channels that may show some music videos, but hardly make up for the channel that “killed the radio star.”
As a kid who grew up on music videos, that is why I am happy to share the news that MTV has launched a Hulu-style site strictly for music videos. All that stuff we’ve been missing over the years, we can simply search for with MTVmusic.com, and watch on demand, presumably without the fear of having videos pulled for copyright infringement, as with YouTube. And the fact that it is an “on demand” service, means that we’re not threatened with shows about spoiled teenage girls learning how to do their grocery shopping taking over, provided they don’t delete their database of music vids.
Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider says, “While the design is clean, there’s also room for one or two ad units per page — currently house ads for other music videos — and presumably MTV will be able to sell post-roll, pre-roll, or pop-over ads, too. All fine and good.”
MTV Music seems to be something music video lovers can get on board with. They don’t have every video for every artist I searched for, but they have plenty that wouldn’t necessarily make the regular rotation if this was a traditional television channel, and that makes me happy.
This is the part, where I say how online video is taking over and all that jazz. Well, isn’t it?
